Pubs are not to blame for underage drinking, says PASS director

Kate Winstanley said there has been a significant decrease in the number of pubs selling alcohol to young people.

She added the “big problem” was under-18s accessing alcohol from relatives with parental permission, which could not be tackled via enforcement and was a “pure education problem”.

Winstanley called for more regular figures to be released regarding where young people source alcohol from, which would help stop pubs being unfairly targeted.

The Department of Health (DoH) releases a study entitled Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use Among Young People in England annually, but the last time the survey included statistics on the source of young people’s alcohol was in 2008.

It found 11 to 15-year-olds are more likely to be given alcohol than to buy it, most often by family or friends.

Trend analysis​

Winstanley, who is also the programme manager of Community Alcohol Partnerships (CAP), said: “Certainly the trends show there has been a significant decrease in the amount of pubs and supermarkets selling drink to young people. Anecdotally we know pubs are going in the right direction. But it would be really useful to have this confirmed by statistics.

“What we do know is that most under-18s are accessing alcohol from relatives with parental permission, which is not against the law if the child is over five and no money has changed hands.

“It seems ridiculous. That is the problem, and it is not something licensees are complicit in, nor responsible for.”

A spokesperson for the Health & Social Care Information Centre, which conducted the research for the survey, said figures on where young people source their alcohol from were not included in the last three reports because “alcohol wasn’t the annual focus”.

However, alcohol is the focus of this year’s report, which will include the figures for 2012, and is set to be published on 25 July.